Tag Archives: New Year

This hangover recovery kit is a surefire way to reboot the body after too much fun.

Mineral Water

Water is going to be the best thing to treat your hangover. A big reason you feel horrible is because the alcohol dehydrated your body. Drinking water before, during and after boozing will always help. What happens when your stomach is too queasy for even water? Try sipping carbonated mineral water. The bubbles will help ease your nausea.

Recommendation: Anything that contains sodium and potassium, two things alcohol causes you to lose.

Sports Drinks

Replenishing fluids after a night of drinking combats dehydration, and it helps mitigate the effects of byproducts left in the stomach. Non-caffeinated, non-carbonated sports drinks replace sodium, glycogen, potassium, and other minerals lost to alcohol’s diuretic effect.

Recommendation: Try one that is low in sugar and calories.

Body Wash

When you finally pull yourself from the bed, nothing will make you feel better in the morning than a shower with refreshing body wash. It’s important not to smell like keg beer for too long between the sheets. The water and fragrant soap will wash off the toxins you’ve been sweating, not to mention last night’s ugly memories.

Recommendation: Get something that will clean and exfoliate.

Eggs

The protein in eggs provides the body with needed energy. Eggs also contain large amounts of cytosine, a chemical that breaks down a hangover.

Bananas will help replenish lost electrolytes and potassium, as well as lay a healthy base in your queasy stomach. The water and natural sugar in fruit are easier on your stomach than processed foods are. The fructose also increases the body’s energy.

Recommendation: Fruits like oranges, bananas, kiwis and grapefruit are great for replacing vitamin C, which will help boost your immune system.

Painkillers

Acetaminophen, found in Excedrin, is great for pain, but has been shown to cause liver damage. Painkillers with caffeine will reduce the size of the pounding blood vessels, lessening the pounding in your head, but caffeine is a diuretic, which will further dehydrate you. So use items with caffeine sparingly.

Recommendation: Alka-Seltzer. Its active ingredient is aspirin. It does have some caffeine, so don’t drink coffee when taking it.

To Lose 30 Pounds in Three Months. While weight-loss goals are commendable, making a high and unrealistic goal sets you up for failure. Instead of deciding on a huge long-term goal, set short-term goals by the month or even the day such as “lose four pounds by February,” or “cut 250 calories per day.” And when you reach your mini-goals be sure to celebrate them, and continue to set new ones to help you attain that big goal at the end of your weight-loss rainbow.

To Join a Gym. Just about everyone I know wants to exercise more in the New Year, making the resolution to “join a gym” popular. While a gym is a great place to work out, just signing the membership papers won’t get you to exercise more. Make a specific fitness-related resolution so exercise happens such as, “I will exercise three times a week,” or “I’ll sign up for a Zumba class once a week.” Specific, focused goals are more likely to happen and can jump-start other exercise goals.

To Cut Out All Sugar. Too much cake, candy, and cookies over the holidays can drive anyone to want to swear off sugar for good. But going extreme with your New Year’s resolution and trying to completely cut out certain types of food like carbs, sugar, or dairy cold turkey on Jan. 1, might be too much for you to handle. If you know you have a sweet tooth or can’t stay away from the bread basket, make a resolution to cut back instead of eliminating. Allow yourself to indulge every once in a while, otherwise you might end up binging and eating more than you would before you even made the resolution.

To Eat Healthier. Don’t get me wrong — deciding to eat healthier is one of the best New Year’s resolution you can make — it’s the broadness of the goal that is the issue. It’s best to define that goal with smaller, more specific goals such as “to eat green veggies at least once a day,” or “eat fruit instead of ice cream for my after-dinner treat.” These defined goals will be easier to follow, making you more successful at your original goal of eating healthier.

To Do Too Much: Resolution Overload. When the first of the year rolls around, many of us want to ditch all our unhealthy ways and start fresh and new, but making too many goals all at once can be so overwhelming that within a week you want to throw in the towel. To increase your success, start with one goal, and once you stick with it for a few weeks, go ahead and add another goal — it’s OK if all your resolutions don’t start exactly on the first day of the New Year.

Come January 1, we’ll dump the “two-thousands” and get cozy with the “twenty-tens.” So say the language experts. In 2000, there were “uncertainties,” said David Crystal of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, so we ignored the example of 1900 (“nineteen-hundred”), and we said “two-thousand.” Why? “Twenty-hundred” is awkward, said Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary. The media is also quickly adopting twenty-ten since it’s easier to say, has fewer syllables and takes less time than two-thousand-ten.